Box to box: We spend the day with Macca and co as Setanta broadcast Manchester United's clash with Everton

By Laura Williamson

Last updated at 8:43 AM on 03rd February 2009

Steve McManaman bounces in to one of Setanta’s outside broadcast trucks in the car park behind Old Trafford, three and a half hours before Manchester United’s clash with Everton.

Still ‘tall and skinny’ (Paul Ince’s description, not mine), McManaman has his hair slicked back and is wearing a pinstriped navy suit and a pink shirt, with a pink silk handkerchief tucked in his top pocket. Quite the seasoned TV pro.

‘Can you put the racing on? Channel Four. I’ve got a bet on,’ is the first thing he says in that strong Scouse accent.

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Suits you sir: Steve McManaman and Paul Ince share a joke at Old Trafford

Several people scurry around and the former Kop favourite soon has a six-inch monitor in front of him showing the 2.05pm race from Sandown.

But he just can’t sit still. He’s a one-man show. Everyone gets an ‘alright mate’ and a firm shake of the hand and he’s nattering away ten to the dozen, trying to bag free tickets for him and Robbie Fowler to go and watch some racing.

Then he’s flicking through a newspaper, deciding what he’s going to pick in his football accumulator bet.

When the racing feed cuts out for a few seconds he is straight on the phone to his mate for a running commentary on Celestial Halo, his 4-5 bet that comes in first.

McManaman won’t say how much his stake was, but you can hazard a guess it wasn’t a paltry amount.

Former professionals get a lot of stick for dishing out advice from the safety of a couch in a TV studio but, as Setanta’s producer, Stephen Cook, suggests, there is no motivation for modern players to become pundits unless they really want to do the job.

The nerve centre: Inside Setanta's editing truck at Old Trafford

Money, after all, is not a pressing issue for those who have made their name in the beautiful game.

McManaman, now 36, an FA Cup and League Cup winner with Liverpool and the first Englishman to win the Champions League with a foreign club, Real Madrid, admitted punditry was not something he had ever considered, but Setanta’s approach in the summer of 2007 changed his mind.

‘I’m good mates with Jamie Redknapp,’ he said, ‘and I’d seen him do it.

‘Stepping away from football is hard. You don’t go into training any more, you aren’t with 20 of your mates all the time, and this is a good way of getting round it. The camaraderie’s back.’

You can see his point. A couple of hours later McManaman is joined by former Liverpool and England team-mate Paul Ince, back in the public glare six weeks after being sacked as Blackburn Rovers boss.

Cook said Ince was most relieved to hear he didn’t have to wear a tie for the show, but ‘The Guv’nor’ is clearly still a little nervous in front of the camera.

By 3.30pm, two hours before kick off, the tie-less Ince and McManaman are sitting in the studio high above the Old Trafford pitch. Anchorman Angus Scott does an impressive job of leading the coverage while the pair of them chatter away off-camera.

Setanta's main commentator John Champion described Manchester United's clash with Everton

The presenter even takes some ribbing from McManaman about turning up in his brother’s suit.

Scott doesn’t flinch when the stadium announcer reads out the team sheets in the middle of his live update from around the grounds. The noise is deafening in the tightly-packed studio, which can’t be more than fifteen square metres in size, but Scott just smiles and carries on as the techies scramble about looking for the ‘off’ switch.

During the advertising break he manages to laugh about it and takes a sip from the bottle of water he has marked with his name in marker pen – experience has shown him television is not as glamorous as it seems.

Commentator Jon Champion is another who impresses with his thorough approach to the live show. He said it takes him two or three days to prepare for each game, to digest the relevant facts and figures and distill them into a page or two of notes.

Champion also has an interesting take on the relationship between the commentator, generally a trained broadcast journalist like himself, and the summariser - former Chelsea, Celtic and Scotland midfielder Craig Burley.

‘My job is to tell the viewer what is happening,’ Champion explains, ‘and it’s his job to say why and how it is happening.

’80 per cent of the job is done by the 29 cameras around the ground. You must never lose sight of the fact that the picture is more powerful than any words can ever be.’

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Smile Paul: Setanta's team pose for the cameras before Saturday's broadcast at Old Trafford

The man who dictates the images the watching world will see is Grant Philips, the match director.

A softly spoken Scotsman and Celtic fan, Philips is not the sort of director who ‘effs and blinds his way through 90 minutes, opting instead to instruct in a quiet, controlled manner.

Philips sits in front of a wall of monitors akin to the flight deck of a 747, calling out the numbers of the cameras he wants to main feed to use.

It is mind boggling to the uninitiated, particularly the speed with which replays are offered after a key incident.

The process debunks the theory men can’t multitask - football matches must have a formula, but controlling 29 cameras and six replay screens takes some doing.

The production goes well, bar McManaman’s issues with saying ‘phenomenal’ and Ince’s attempts to get a word in edgeways, and Manchester United reach their 12th game without conceding a goal with a 1-0 victory over Everton.

The United fans may be celebrating but, for the Setanta production crew, it is time de-rig the cameras, pack up the trucks and move on to the next venue. The ‘talent’, the faces in front of camera, will be long gone by this point - but you can bet your life McManaman’s still talking.